The Silence of the Sea
by OPYKJ
Summary: "How could I have known that for twenty years I would only listen to the silence of the sea?" An AU where Kathryn Janeway loses everything. Dark.
1. Prologue

This is the story the House Prime told me as he lay dying in the vast hall while all was burning around us. Of all the servants and attendants and maids which once had numbered in their hundreds, only the Lady and I remained, watching over him during his final hours oozing blood and black bile onto the tessellated marble floor.

I had been pledged to the House a mere few months before its fiery end, my parents unable to feed me and the rest of their brood—a common occurrence amid the city throng. I know nothing of what happened to them as the cities burned, here and among the stars.

While you might find it hard to believe that people ever went to the stars, I am telling you, it is true. Once upon a time, there were ships which crossed the empty night, like those who go far at sea, looking for fish and hoping for treasure. There were men and women then who did not flinch at the eternal darkness surrounding them, or succumbed gasping in the cold and too-thin air. I do not know of such things myself of course. Back then, I watched the palace wall screens exalting the Prime's conquests of worlds beyond ours, and applauded his bravery and might as his fleet rewarded him and the House with riches for keeping us safe from the barbarians.

None of that survives now. The screens shattered, the booty melted into the ground, the smoke carried the riches away into the clouds. Soon there were no more spaceships, no more cities, and everybody became as ignorant as the rats which infest our villages, and the sparrows which eat our crops.

Nobody but I remembers those days. Recalling the past is a dangerous exercise I've been warned. We took the tyrant down, destroyed his House and all that stood for it, they say. Swept away the corruption and filth. Brought freedom to the people. Distributed the wealth, although I've always wondered about that because all I ever got was one good meal before being sent to a reform camp. But our virtuous leaders must be right. Who am I to say otherwise when I was only a child all those decades ago, a victim of the House's shameless and cruel way of life.

So I have been told.

I was coarse and curious and quick on my feet then, put to work as an errand boy to the Lady of the House. I didn't know her name. The Prime did not tell me in his dying breaths. I thought at the time he might have forgotten it, his memory failing him as was his body. I saw and heard much, but understood very little of the minds of those I served.

His body pierced like a kitchen sieve, the House Prime recounted what started the fall of the House that had stood for more than two hundred years and six generations. The Lady, he spat out, his eyes cloudy as I sat by his side, was the one who started it all.

This is the story he told me. This is the story of the woman I know only as the Lady.

* * *

 _The narrator is a direct descendant of the boy in 'Souls' by Joanna Russ. Her novella won the Hugo Award in 1983 and is the story of the Abbess Radegunde stopping the Viking from pillaging her abbey, as told by her young protégé._

* * *

 _Gifted to Voyagerfictionfan._


	2. Silence

The House Prime halted his footsteps as the exotic notes weaved their way through the vast hall. The woman was humming a broken melody which was probably much more elaborate in her head, as everything else was. Having forgotten what she sounded like after so many months of being held hostage to her silence, the deep raspy tone held more surprise for him than the fact she still had a voice.

The infant gurgled noisily over his mother's tune. For the first time, the man cursed the child who could draw those sounds from her when he had been unable to make her even scream despite his best efforts.

It was that voice that had attracted him in the early days, breaking through the clouds of ennui and banality which accompanied him everywhere he went. The welcome smiling tone whispered at him from the vidscreen of his ship, like a sweet breeze over deep ocean. She was so hopeful of a quick resolution to what she considered a simple misunderstanding as her small ship crossed the vast territory his House held without paying proper due. An error from her part, she explained at length, apologising with offers of trade when he met her face-to-face in her ship's so austere, so impersonal briefing room. He'd said little then, increasing the stakes at every meeting just to be within a few steps from her, breathing in her voice like one imbibes a rare wine.

Her ship was far from home, and the long journey begged many sacrifices, he soon learnt. How great the sacrifice, he wondered, indifferent to her tales of the crew's courage and fortitude.

It was hers he wanted to test, he told me, his hand clutching my shoulder in the darkness of the hall.

Not hiding his interest in her—that was not his habit—he ignored the dark glares, tense jaw and terse greeting words from the tall man at her side. She banished the self-appointed chaperone out of his sight after one tedious confrontation at a dinner she'd invited him and his entourage. He saw a lingering hand on the man's chest, silent words spoken without a sound. He thought nothing of it, discarding all but her from his awareness.

Once her second-in-command was gone, she made the mistake of thinking she should reciprocate his attention to win her ship quicker passage. The Prime had no need for her lashed eyes, the leer on her lips, and her hips askew as she sauntered ahead of him to the plain table and its meagre offerings. The coy banter, the velvet voice, the soft angles of her bare breasts beneath the thin fabric of her dress might have entertained others, but he was Prime of the House: he could pick and choose from plenty of the same among the planets of his realm. He sipped the tasteless drinks and returned to his ship, promising little.

Before long, he heard her command voice, outrage seeping through every word as she refused to bow to ultimatums that he made harder and harder for her and her crew to meet. She blustered her way through, escaped into the depths of space, or so she thought. He let out more line only to reel her ship into the shallows of a vast asteroid field bordering his territory and dotted with the remains of spaceships far better armed than hers. There she made a stand, fought a final battle. Her ship, her beloved pint-sized ship, didn't last long against his well-honed armada. It ran aground on a lump of rock like a small wretched sea creature wheezing under the strain of maintaining life within its broken walls.

And yet, he wasn't done with her.

Ice and frost greeted him when he entered the ship, her voice as biting as the frozen ocean—an omen of what would come much later, the Prime spurted in my ear. He should have left her and her crew to disappear into the night beyond, he told me. But he was smiling, and I knew he regretted nothing.

They had fought well—for barbarians—and there was nothing they could provide that he did not already have ensconced somewhere in the vast halls of his House, built as it was on six generations of conquests and plunder. His was a time of unrivalled wealth and power. He ruled dozens of worlds and millions of subjects. A small ship from the end of the galaxy held little of worth, he said to her as he glanced at the scorched bridge.

But there was so much more of her he had not tasted yet.

He remembered a game his father had told him about, a blind man game he played inside her ship's cargo bay. The dark-haired man with his dark eyes and his dark thoughts was the first to cross the width of the echoing space while he sat at the other end, shooting into the depths of the pitch-black room. He often missed but not always, as one by one her officers followed their commander and ran the gauntlet.

She pleaded, eyes wide with horror, questions, always questions on her lips. _What do you want? What are you after? What can I do to make this slaughter stop?_

He listed some pieces of technology he did not care less about, crewmen to add to his army, women to feed to his troops. The ship for target practice. He smiled when she refused, and waited.

Those who survived his little game got to line up the following day, and again the days after until there were more bodies filling the room than senior crew left standing.

He listened to her shattered voice until she said _take me_. The same day, he escorted the ruins of her ship through the asteroid field to the border as proof he was holding his side of the bargain. When her home disappeared into the beyond, she looked at him with her steely blue eyes and said _thank you_ , before he tore the uniform and captain's pips off her and ordered his soldiers to take her away.

The Prime gasped and coughed, interrupting his tale, fingers like talons on my arm. "How was I to know?" His voice was slurred. "How could I have known that for twenty years I would only listen to the silence of the sea?"

* * *

 _'Le Silence de la Mer' was written by Jean Bruller and published in 1942 in German-occupied France. It tells the story of an old man and his niece who refuse to speak to the German officer who boards at their house. The book became one of the symbols of French resistance._


	3. Child

She tasted the renown hospitality of his prison, silent even as he took her and marked her as his. The Prime revelled in her, fascinated by the sheer exoticism of her hair, her freckled skin which so easily retained the imprint of his gloves, her eyes like a storm in the sky, her long fingers gripping the sides of the thin dirty mattress. He returned often, the lingering savour of her tantalising all his senses.

He closed his eyes, a rictus on his lips. Only his ragged breaths told me he wasn't dead yet, memories from a time long past keeping him alive for a while longer. After a moment, he continued her story.

When he learnt she was with child, he put her in one of the summer lodges dotting the vast garden nestled between the two palace wings. He ordered round-the-clock patrols outside the bungalow walls, a taster in the kitchen and a matron in the antechamber. He knew too well the

During his visits, the matron stayed, blending into the wall as he led her mistress to the four-poster bed. The woman who would become the Lady submitted to him without a sound, her belly swollen, her eyes empty.

He attended the birth as was the custom of the House, listened to the screams and watched the waves of blood, so much blood and screaming because she was much smaller, said the hurried doctors, than the abiding heifers crowding the palace.

A day later, the midwife presented him with a squirming baby boy, his one and only son, after twenty years and dozens of barren trollops had left the House without an heir. But the infant's face was too smooth, his eyes too dark. This was the son of another, the child of a sombre tall man always in the shadow of the former captain, and now lost to her. A man who had died in the cargo bay of a doomed ship, his body riddled with phaser holes.

She would not bear another child, he was told, but one was enough. He looked into the woman's eyes, grey as a sunless day over the northern waters, and said _thank you_. Understanding passed between them. He would recognise the child as his, and she would divulge nothing of her son's true origin.

Once she had recovered from the birth, he bestowed her the West wing of his palace, opposite his lodgings, and instated her as his one and only consort. He crushed the rumours about the child's descent, made the insinuations and their mouthpieces disappear, shielded both son and mother. The young boy grew intelligent if prone to brooding at times.

The Prime kept the Lady at his side. She accompanied him on his travels, stopping his hand when before he would have lashed out, showing a different path to constant warfare and looting. Peace trickled, a small rivulet at first, then it blossomed among all the worlds under his rule. The young men stayed in their villages and towns instead of being sent to their deaths in far-flung wars and leaving empty women to grow old and bitter. Art and science flourished under the Lady's patronage, the land bloomed, and its people breathed a sigh of relief. To celebrate this new era of prosperity, the Prime threw great parades, built huge monuments and public works, had giant statues carved in his likeness and that of the Lady.

And still she never spoke, he said, his own voice wavering.

The summer his son turned twelve, the Prime took him on a grand tour and showed him the realm which one day would be his to rule. The boy learnt about power, might and hard-heartedness, all things expected from a future House Prime. When he came back from his first term at the military academy the following winter, he saluted his father and bowed his head stiffly at his mother.

Where once only conquests would feed the House coffins, heavy taxes ensured its opulence continued to grow, even if few shared its wealth. Protests against the Prime's iron control and profligate regime were swift to emerge and as swiftly quashed. Like fires in a swamp, they were never totally extinguished though. Unrest spread from world to world, in the shadows of the House rule.

On his son's sixteenth birthday, the Prime sent him to quell an uprising two hundred parsecs away. A man came back six months later, with a province pacified and more booty than the House knew what to do with. Stories of his courage and tactical cunning made the rounds of the palace as the festivities lasted well into the weeks following his return.

Each time he was sent away, the dark-haired man came back stronger, a growing band of ships and men following his command. Unease gnawed at the Prime even as the young charismatic soldier kneeled at his feet in obedience.

He thought of recalling his son to his side to better keep a lid on the man's nascent rise and cut him off from his troops. A misinterpretation about dues levied from a seedy system close to the border put his plan on hold. For his last assignment, the Prime sent the Prince to a place of sleazy trade posts and dubious loyalty that needed to be reminded which side of the asteroid field they had pledged their allegiance to.


	4. Sea

The Prime's voice halted with another coughing fit. When he recovered, he gestured for me to take over the tale of what had happened when the Prince returned early from his mission. This is the story of those last hours when the House fell around me.

I was loitering in the palace corridors when I first heard the news of the Lady's son sudden homecoming, his arrival throwing the palace into turmoil.

"He was not supposed to be back for another month", said the Keeper of the Court, his frown wavering as he scurried towards the Prime's East wing.

"What will the Prime do?" the retinue of courtiers murmured among themselves, rubbing their hands at the prospect of strife between father and son.

"We are not ready", cried the scullery maids when I ventured into the kitchens in chase of left-overs.

Belly full, I returned to the Lady's quarters, eager to tell her of the rumours about her son. I had but said two words when the Prince's voice bellowed as he made his way into the West wing, throwing doors open and tossing aside all who stood in his path. He rushed into the Lady's chamber and threw me in a corner of the room where I cowered, petrified by his fury. Six of his soldiers turned on their heels, facing the long corridor, their back straight and arms at the ready.

"Who was he?" the young man roared.

The Lady had no fear of her son. She walked to him, her heavy brocade dress brushing the floor. She had been awaiting the House Prime that afternoon, and her maid had already helped her get into the clothes he liked her to wear. That's how I remember the Lady after all those years, regal and beautiful, her grey hair flowing down her back, her lashes long, her eyes blue like pools at low tide where one sees the reflection of the sky.

"Use the voice I now know you have, Mother. Tell me who he was."

She said nothing of course, and simply put her hand on his chest armour, her face questioning his words.

"Tell me how you could abandon him and become a whore to that man." Her son pointed to the East wing looming over the garden trees.

She slapped him, her eyes darkening so fast it felt like a thundercloud had wrapped itself over the house.

As quick as she was, she was no match for the sharpened reflexes of a soldier. The Prince snatched her wrist and pulled her closer to him. I held my breath, sure he was going to kill her on the spot. I wished to come between them, but my heart has never held much courage and I was but a small and skinny child.

His voice dropped. "Let me tell you a story then, if you will not answer me. I met a man drinking his woes away in one of those sordid outposts that pepper the border. A blotchy little man with whiskers and yellow eyes, full of tales and drink."

The Lady tried to take a step back, but the young man held her fast. "He spoke of a ship once white and powerful, flying under the light of a thousand stars and bound for a very long journey home. A ship with a woman at its helm, a captain with hair of sunset and a voice like the deeps of the sea. And always at her side was her first officer, tall and strong, hair as black as night and markings on the side of his forehead."

The Prince tensed his jaw. "That little man spoke of the alien ship, wounded beyond repair, which had crossed the border two decades prior, while venting plasma and precious air. Its captain was gone, its first officer dead, its senior officers decimated. The surviving crew mourned them, before selling the ship to scrap traders. They scattered among the nearby systems. The man said he never saw any of them again as he took up his old trading habits and roamed the border."

The Lady's face had lost all colour. If it had not been for his grip on her, she would have collapsed at his feet.

"He said he knew who I was the minute I set foot in the inn. That I was taller maybe and had a lighter skin, but I had my father's eyes and the same smile. I hit that puny excuse of a man square on the mouth and told him I was the Prime's beloved son, Prince of the realm, heir to the House. The hairy man just chuckled, as if we were sharing a joke. _Hasn't your mother told you about him_? he smiled. He even drew the markings he had talked about, a tattoo he called it."

Even from where I huddled, I could see great shudders going through the Lady as the young man ripped her long sleeve, thrusting thin pale scars on the inside of her left wrist into the blades of light rushing through the window louvres.

The young man loomed over the Lady, his face in shadows as he tore at her dress. "How long before you had forsaken your ship, your crew and your first officer for a life of wealth and riches?" Buttons, pearls and ribbons fell like snow around her. "How long, Mother, before you bent over for another's pleasure and sold him your body and soul," her son continued, ripping through her.

Layer by layer, her clothes dropped at her feet, leaving her bare. "How long before you forgot your one-time lover and pushed the name of my father into oblivion?" the Lady's son snarled, his hand to her neck.

"Chakotay," she said, and it was like hearing waves crushing over jagged rocks. "Your father's name was Chakotay, and he was my husband."

Her voice held hints of a foreign tongue that was unknown among the palace crowd, and I knew that instant she was indeed whom her son claimed her to be. I gasped but neither of them heard my pitiful cry of surprise.

The Prince released his grip and watched her, his eyes wide. "Chakotay," he whispered, and then he was gone, soldiers rallying his small company behind him as he stormed out.

The Lady dropped to the floor not bothering to hide her naked body from me. I threw my arms around her neck, and she held me while I sobbed, not knowing what drew those tears out of me. Or maybe, as young as I was then, my heart foresaw what was to come.

After a few minutes, she got up and slid the heavy dress back on her shoulders.

Bruises and cuts adorned her skin where the Prince had wrenched the tight clothing from her, but she ignored them. Instead, she quickly gathered sparkling necklaces and heavy brooches from the top of the vanity and rummaged the drawers for precious stones. She put it all into a purse which she secured to her belt. Sliding her fingers underneath the vanity top, she picked a phaser from a secret compartment and checked its charge before hiding it into a fold of her dress.

Shots and explosions erupted from the East wing, and the garden soon filled with lost and bewildered palace servants. The Lady showed them the entrance to an underground passage which weaved its way under the palace walls. She freed them from their lifetime contracts in the House service with a few kind words which left them dumbstruck, and gave her jewellery away as compensation for the abrupt end of their indenture. The Prime's loyal servants hurried in the tunnel towards a future as dark and murky, leaving us alone.


	5. Fall

It was only when the people had safely left that the Lady turned back inside. Holding her dress off the ground, she walked towards the East wing, with me trotting by her side. The sharp sounds of small arms could be heard from afar. Followers of the Prince lined the corridors, blocking our passage. Only when they had been bribed with the last of her baubles were we allowed to enter the vast darkened hall.

We found the Prime slumped against the far wall, his legs charred to the bone, his arms and chest sprayed with deep phaser burns. Even I could see that he had but little time to live.

"Who has done this to you?" she asked in her raspy voice, looking at him with distaste.

"It has only taken you two decades to talk to me. Have I been such a terrible husband?" A half smile appeared on his lips.

"I was never yours to call your wife," she spat. I thought she would take her phaser out and shoot him.

"You were eager for your son to bear my name, though."

"I couldn't lose him too. It suited you to have an heir and I knew you would protect him. I upheld my end of our agreement and never sought for any of this to happen." She waved at the room and the fracas we could hear outside.

The Prime snarled. "I treated him like my son. What made him turn against me?"

She sat down on her heels, her dress brushing the crimson tiles. "The truth. On his last mission, he met one of my former crew member who recognised whose son he really is."

"A mere coincidence. After twenty years of silence, what did _you_ tell him?"

The Lady bent her head. "The name of his father," she whispered.

"Ah! that was what he hurled at me after he killed the lights." The Prime coughed without losing his smile. "I don't think I ever knew the man's name."

The Lady's knuckles turned pale.

The Prime grabbed her left hand and pushed the sleeve up, leaving red trails behind. For the second time, I saw the lines deeply incised on her skin. "I do remember those very same marks drawn on his temple, though. Why injure yourself so? Guilt for your part in his death?"

"I sought to escape the life sentence you had condemned me to," the Lady said, yanking her arm free of his grip and covering the scars. "But you always made sure that I was revived and patched up again, ready for you instead. Then I realised I was pregnant. I could not endanger the life of our child. He was the only one left. He had a right to live."

"How touching. Protecting what was left of your crew and then your unborn child, so sure you were that it was his son you were carrying. And now, who is going to save you when I'm dead?"

"I never wanted to be saved, and certainly not by you."

He laughed, then his cough came back with a vengeance. For a few minutes, all conversation stopped as the Prime wheezed and spat blood, before his head dropped back against the wall with a small thud. He grinned.

"I always thought it would be you with a weapon and me at the other end of the hall, shuffling in the dark, my silhouette captured in the light of phaser fire. It would have made for a very satisfactory settling of scores. How ironic it was _him_ instead."

"It makes me feel sick to know Chakotay's son—"

"He is _my_ son. There is no doubt about it. I knew the very first time he saluted me and laid his loyalty at my feet that he would make me proud. He will be a worthy Prime, feared by all."

The Lady looked at him, eyes wide then laughed too, icicles dropping from her lips. "Listen to the sounds of your palace falling around you. Your servants have deserted you, your soldiers have fled, your treasures are burning. People are rising against you, and soon, there will be nothing left of the House."

The Prime pushed himself off the floor by pure will before collapsing in a breathless heap. "You cannot deny my legacy. My son will be greater than me. His army will conquer more systems than I ever did. But act against him, long for the destruction of his House, and you will fall with it."

"So be it," she hissed. "My son repels me. I was a fool to think I could bring him up untouched by your savagery and corruption."

"You will not dare touch him," the Prime said, the corner of his lips upturned in a sneer. "Your Chakotay lives in him too."

"My husband was a man who sought justice for ills done to his people, even when justice was not done to him at the end. He would never have sought vengeance for its own sake. He was never blind or brutal."

"How can you be so sure? Where does that anger which lurks deep in your son come from? I did nothing more than stoke the fire in him."

The Lady opened her mouth, then breathed deeply and said nothing, her gaze set firmly on her hands.

Smirking, the Prime closed his eyes, dismissive. "But if you think you can appease him, then go and find him. Tell him of your righteous values, those protocols you so liked to throw at my face when we first met."

She tipped her head on the side, hesitating.

"Or stay here and watch me die instead. I'm sure your heart is rejoicing."

She stood, disgust etched around her mouth. The Prime shouted after her as she left the room: "And when you find him, try and convince yourself he is not my true heir. The blood of many more will stain the streets before he quenches his rage."

When she was gone, he sagged, his breathing laboured. "It's only you and me, boy. Pass me that bottle of wine my son so thoughtfully avoided hitting. I'll tell you a story about a small white ship and its beautiful captain in exchange."

Explosions rocked the floor as the palace burnt, but I stayed and listened to a story of loss, tragedy and doomed love.


	6. Epilogue

The Prime stayed silent for a long time when he'd finished his tale. I poked him in the arm to see if he was still alive. His eyes opened with a start, as red as the puddle he was sitting in.

He grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and shoved a small bag in my hand as I fought his grip. "Find the Lady and give her these. They belong to her." His chest heaved. "Tell her my son is now Prime. Tell her, I'm not sorr—"

His head lolled to the side. The pressure on my neck eased, and I wrenched myself free of his dead hand. I ran from room to room searching for the Lady. The soldiers had gone, ransacking some rooms and leaving others to the fire now engulfing parts of the palace.

I found my mistress walking up the grand staircase leading to the West wing. Fat trails of smoke billowed from under the heavy curtains lining the walls on the landing.

"My Lady", I called. "The Prime is dead. Long live the new Prime," and I did a little dance at the bottom of the steps, I am ashamed to say now.

She turned her head, and let out a bitter laugh. "There are no more Primes, child." She opened her fingers and her phaser bounced all the way down to my feet. "Save yourself. Run away from this place," she added before continuing up the stairs into the shimmering haze waiting for her at the top.

"But I've got a gift for you, from the Prime," I shouted, stepping over the weapon. Before I even grabbed the handrail, the curtains ignited one after the other with a deep rumble. Waves of heat rushed down the staircase, and I was driven back, weeping and sputtering.

When I glanced back, the Lady had reached the top step. A tide of flames rose around her and raced up her dress with a roar. Without uttering a sound, she walked into the roiling depths of the fire.

I never saw her again.

I fled to the garden and into a small raucous crowd dragging the corpse of the Prince by his feet, his lifeless body bouncing on the pavers. Laughing and screaming, they strung him up from one of the giant statues of the Prime, before returning to loot what they could carry. Flies were already buzzing around a single phaser hole on the left of his chest armour, like sharks rushing at a carcass. His eyes were open wide, as if in disbelief as to whom had meted his end.

The fall of the House was complete.

Throughout the years which bled into decades, I held on to the small bag I had failed to deliver. If only I had plucked the courage to run up the stairs and give the Lady what was hers, she might have turned around and not sought out death. Although, I don't see why she would have cared for four small metal studs fastened in a straight line onto a torn scrap of grey fabric.

As I've said before, I never understood what was in the hearts of those who used to cross the vast and silent sea that lies beyond the stars.


End file.
